[olivierlacan]

I agree. Maintaining a changelog can be certainly be more difficult in large projects (although I don't think it has to be). I do think changelogs are a manifestation of the maintainers' care with regard to end-users. It signifies that they don't simply focus on the quality of the project itself but also how the project's evolution is perceived and understood by end-users and fellow contributors.

It's strange to me that anyone would consider especially open source software as something so good and obviously beneficial that the archeology you mention would be a fact of life for end-users. It betrays a misconception about the value of software in a vacuum: without tests, code documentation, interface design, and change documentation (a changelog).

The best algorithm is useless without proper tests verifying how it functions against real input; it's obscure without good documentation highlighting its quirks and design decisions, and if it evolves without clear explanations within a changelog then the changes in its behavior will remain mysteries to end-users as long as they don't go deep inside the code to understand how it worked before and how it works now.

I've had to do this kind of programmer-archeology on numerous production dependencies (transitive or otherwise) in the past and the resulting frustration is very much the fuel that motivated me to make keepachangelog.com